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Juan Gabriel Vasquezbooks include the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin award winner and national bestseller, The Sound of Things Falling, as well as the award-winning The Informers and The Secret History of Costaguana.

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The Reformation

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Overview

The National Book Critics Circle Award–winning history of the Reformation—from the New York Times bestselling author of Christianity and Silence

At a time when men and women were prepared to kill—and be killed—for their faith, the Protestant Reformation tore the Western world apart. Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch’s award-winning history brilliantly re-creates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars, and politicians—from the zealous Martin Luther and his Ninety-Five Theses to the polemical John Calvin to the radical Igantius Loyola, from the tortured Thomas Cranmer to the ambitious Philip II.

Drawing together the many strands of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and ranging widely across Europe and the New World, MacCulloch reveals as never before how these dramatic upheavals affected everyday lives—overturning ideas of love, sex, death, and the supernatural, and shaping the modern age.

Praise

“One of the most magisterial and stylishly written historical works to be published in a decade . . . MacCulloch’s analyses of the lives, personalities, ideas, and struggles are at once sharp and profound. . . . A lasting work.”—Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic

“Evenhanded, learned, and profound . . . It is difficult to imagine anybody writing a better book about the Reformation.”—Karen Armstong, Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Superb . . . MacCulloch brings the history of the Reformation into vivid focus, providing what must surely be the best general account available.”—A. C. Grayling, Financial Times

“Dazzling . . . A magnificent achievement . . . It is hard not to admire a book that is such a masterpiece of learning, and yet written with a disarming lightness of touch.”—Michael Howard, The Times Literary Supplement

“A masterpiece of readable scholarship . . . In its field it is the best book ever written.”—David Edwards, The Guardian

Table of Contents

Preface and AcknowledgmentsList of Illustrations and MapsIntroduction

PART I: A COMMON CULTURE

1. The Old Church, 1490-1517Seeing Salvation in Church. The First Pillar: The Mass and Purgatory. Layfolk at Prayer. The Second Pillar: Papal Primacy. A Pillar Cracks: Politics and the Papacy. Church Versus Commonwealth?

2. Hopes and Fears, 1490-1517Shifting Boundaries. The Iberian Exception. The Iberian Achievement: The Western Church Exported. New Possibilities: Paper and Printing. Humanism: A New World from Books. Putting Renewal into Practice. Reform or the Last Days? Erasmus: Hopes, Fulfilled, Fears Stilled?

3. New Heaven: New Earth, 1517-24The Shadow of Augustine. Luther: A Good Monk, 1483-1517. An Accidental Revolution, 1517-21. Whose Revolution? 1521-22. Evangelical Challenges: Zwingli and Radicalism, 1521-22. Zürich and Wittenberg, 1522-24. The Years of Carnival, 1521-24

4. Wooing the Magistrate,1524-40Europe’s Greatest Rebellion, 1524-25. Princely Churches or Christian Separation, 1525-30. The Birth of Protestantisms, 1529-33. Strassburg: New Rome or New Jerusalem? Kings and Reformers, 1530-40. A New King David? Münster and It’s Aftermath

5. Reunion Deferred: Catholic and Protestant, 1530-60A Southern Revival. Ignatius Loyola and the Early Jesuits. Hopes for a Deal: The 1541-42 Crisis. A Council at Trent: The First Session, 1545-49. Calvin in Geneva: The Reformed Answer to Münster . Calvin and the Eucharist: Protestant Divisions Confirmed. Reformed Protestantism: Alternatives to Calvin, 1540-60

6. Reunion Scorned, 1547-70Crisis for the Habsburgs, 1547-55. 1555: An Emperor’s Exhaustion, a Pope’s Obsession. A Catholic Recovery: England, 1553-58. 1558-59: Turning Points for Dynasties. The Last Session of the Council of Trent, 1561-63. Protestants in Arms: France and the Low Countries, 1562-70

12. Coda: A British Legacy, 1600-1700New English Beginnings: Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrews. Early Stuart England: The Church’s Golden Age? War in Three Kingdoms, 1638-60. A Spectrum of Protestantisms, 1660-1700. American Beginnings